1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic wind instrument which generates a musical tone with a pitch in response to the breath manipulation of a player, and, more particularly, to an electronic wind instrument with a pitch data delay function that prevents a musical tone with an undesired pitch being generated during fingering operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic wind instruments generally detect the breath manipulation of a player, as an electric signal, by means of a breath sensor provided at the mouthpiece and generate a musical tone with a pitch specified by a plurality of pitch-setting switches provided on the musical instrument body, in accordance with the detected electric signal.
Unlike electronic keyboard instruments, the electronic wind instruments of this type specify one pitch by a combined operation of pitch-setting switches. When one pitch is altered to another, therefore, it is necessary to perform simultaneous OFF operation of a plurality of pitch-setting switches that have been operated in combination in advance and immediately perform simultaneous ON operation of another group or combination of pitch-setting switches. This operation requires skills and causes even skilled players to have a period in which the proper fingering operation is not performed, thus generating a musical tone with the undesired, improper pitch during that transient instance.
A solution to this problem has recently been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,767,833. The disclosed electronic wind instrument is provided with a tone stopping circuit which temporarily stops tone generation during octave shifting in order to prevent a musical tone with the undesired pitch being generated during this octave shifting. With this instrument, however, tone generation is stopped even temporarily during a musical performance and the music played would not have the effect of natural and smooth volume change.
Further, there would be a significant difference in level of the fingering operation technique between novice and skilled players, and the above problem cannot be solved simply for all the players.
Furthermore, with the use of the electronic wind instruments of this type, an octave changing switch is operated to increase or reduce the pitch set by the pitch-setting switches by units of octave. As the octave-changing operation is normally performed by a player's thumb, this operation is particularly difficult as compared with the pitch altering operation by the pitch-setting switches. It is therefore difficult to perform the octave changing operation in synchronism with the fingering operation of the pitch-setting switches. In this case, there also arises a problem that a musical tone with the undesired pitch is generated while the pitch specified by the pitch-setting switches is altered to another pitch of a predetermined octave higher or lower, by operating the octave-changing switch.